Les mouches, Sodome et Gomorrhe, and Caligula present divinities parodying
and criticizing the political leaders of the Occupation (1940-1944), as well as the use
by dictators of traditional religious ideologies for subjugating humanity to totalitarian
regimes. Theatrical divinities once infallible and all-powerful, the figures analyzed in
this study are the product of the questioning of the divinity and political powers of the
twentieth century.
Our thesis is comprised of three chapters which examine the discourses of
these figures of the divinity from dramaturgical, semiological, philosophical and
pragmatic perspectives in order to consider the following hypothesis : everything
leads to believe that by limiting the ascendency of fictional divinities, largely by the
means of weaknesses in their discourses, Sartre, Giraudoux and Camus tried to
neutralize the corresponding discourses of real men in the collective conscience of the
period.
The authors studied profoundly modified the traditional image of theatrical
divinities by undermining the force of their language and by questioning their
identity. The divinities chosen for this study announce the decomposition of the
personnage which took place after 1950 : their status is undermined and the
perlocutionary force of their language is lessened. Without a real stronghold on
humanity, depending on theatre, pretence, histrionics, and human weaknesses, these
caricatured divinities expose themselves to compromising their regimes and are
reduced to an influence highly limited by man’s liberty. By updating these myths and
accounts in this way, Sartre, Giraudoux and Camus tried, by extension, to discredit
the European leaders of the period.